CLASSIFICATION AND CREATION. 71 
breathe through lungs; but they differ from all 
other Vertebrates in their mode of reproduction, 
bringing forth living young, which they nurse 
with milk. Even in the lowest members of this 
highest group of the Vertebrates, at the head 
of which stands Man himself, looking heaven- 
ward it is true, but nevertheless rooted deeply in 
the Animal Kingdom, we have the dawning of 
those family relations, those intimate ties between 
parents and children, on which the whole social 
organization of the human race is based. Man 
is the crowning work of God on earth; but 
though so nobly endowed, we must not forget 
that we are the. lofty children of a race whose 
lowest forms lie prostrate within the water, hav- 
ing no higher aspiration than the desire for food ; 
and we cannot understand the possible degrada- 
tion and moral wretchedness of Man, without 
knowing that his physical nature is rooted in all 
the material characteristics that belong to his 
type and link him even with the Fish. The 
moral and intellectual gifts that distinguish him 
from them are his to use or to abuse; he may, if 
he will, abjure his better nature and be Verte- 
brate more than Man. He may sink as low as the 
lowest of his type, or he may rise to a spiritual 
height that will make that which distinguishes 
him from the rest far more the controlling ele- 
ment of his being than that which unites him 
with them. 
